


only the lonely survive

by daughterofrohan



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Fix-It, blatant Barton family erasure, everyone lives (eventually), sir this is my emotional support canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofrohan/pseuds/daughterofrohan
Summary: some people try to raise the dead / some people try to live instead





	1. some people try to raise the dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few things:
> 
> -endgame killed & then resurrected me so hard that i have come back from retirement to write the fix it nobody asked me for  
> -i am not a writer, just a simple scientist who studied the neurophysiology of pain, which means i know how to make this hurt but i don't know how to make it well written  
> -if you recognize it i don't own it  
> -fic title from Marianas Trench (i owe them my soul) - [listen here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTfZO1vI0_8)  
> -this chapter was powered by 5 pb&j sandwiches, an assortment of hot beverages, and 5 minutes of my cat walking across my keyboard  
> -any typos are a direct result of my cat walking across my keyboard

Selfishly, she wants it to end this way. As sickening as it is, the thought of throwing herself off the cliff to plummet to her death, she feels an absurd sense of peace at the thought of it finally being over. For five years she’s held vigil, spending sleepless nights poring over old files, desperately scouring the universe for something, _anything_ , that might be able to bring everyone back.

She’s always known it would come with a price.

It's fitting, in a way, that she's the one to pay it.

Clint, naturally, disagrees.

“We need to talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“There has to be another way.”

“There’s no other way, Clint.”

“Please.” He slides to the ground, back against the rock, as far away from the cliff’s edge as the ledge they’re on will allow him to be. “Just talk to me.”

“They’ll be waiting for us.”

“We have all the time we need,” he reminds her gently. “We’ll only be gone a minute.”

 _You’ll only be gone a minute,_ she thinks. _I’ll only be gone._ Nevertheless, she sinks to the ground beside him and the cold rock presses firmly into her back, a harsh reminder that this unforgiving planet demands a sacrifice from them. Their guide floats just within sight, the tattered edge of his cloak brushing up against the edge of the cliff. She wonders how long he’s been here, how he knew her father’s name, how many people he’s turned away after they'd realized how high of a price they'd have to pay.

She wonders if it hurts to die.

 _A soul for a soul_.

There’s only one way to get the stone. She knows it intimately, the way she knows that the sun rises each morning and sets each night. The way she knows that there’s only one person in this world she’d willingly throw herself off a cliff for, and he’s sitting right next to her.

She’s spent the last five years living for one single purpose. She might as well die for it.

She almost thinks he’ll let her.

She doesn’t have time to think again until they’re hanging from the side of the cliff, Clint tethered to the rock, holding on to her wrist like both their lives depend on it. If it were anyone else in the world holding on to her like this, she’d be scared that they’d let her go. Because it’s Clint, she’s scared that he won’t.

The fingertips of his other hand just barely brush hers, his face contorted with the effort of trying to reach her so he can hold her more securely. Her wrist shifts, a mere fraction of a millimeter inside his grip, and he holds her even tighter in response, tears welling in the corners of his eyes. She both loves and hates him for it; loves him for refusing to let her fall, and hates him for making her do it herself.

His eyes, when they lock with hers, are full of fear, and she knows he won’t be able to hold on indefinitely, just as she knows that he’ll never be able to live with himself if he’s the one to drop her. “It’s okay,” she whispers, unsure of who she’s trying to convince. _It’s okay_ , she tells herself once more as she plants her feet against the rock and pushes back as hard as she can, ripping her hand from his grip. His scream mingles with the air rushing through her ears as she watches him, still tethered firmly to the wall, growing smaller and smaller and smaller.

As the ground rushes up to meet her, she closes her eyes.

* * *

 

 

_''Do you think I’m a good person?”_

_“I don’t think you’re a bad person.”_

_“That’s not the question I asked.”_

_“I think it’s all a matter of perspective. We do bad things for good reasons sometimes.”_

_“I know. That’s the problem.”_

_“Natasha-”_

_“Does it get easier? Living with…with what you’ve done.”_

_“Ask me again sometime.”_

_“Not yet, then?”_

_“No. Not yet.”_

* * *

 

He thinks a part of her has always wanted this. A chance to make things even. A chance to wipe the red from her ledger once and for all.

He’d told her, what felt like countless times, that she’d more than cleared her ledger, that the good she’d done for this world far outweighed the bad. He knows she’d never really believed him.

_Love is for children. I owe him a debt._

The words haunt him the same way they had when he’d first heard them, the day he’d all but begged Stark to show him the footage of Natasha interrogating Loki. “It’s not pretty,” he’d been warned, and it hadn’t been. He remembers wondering how to tell her that she didn’t owe him anything, that she’d already saved him in more ways than she could possibly know.

How does he tell her anything, now that she’s gone?

He wonders if maybe it was always meant to end this way. Not a glorious death in battle, because that had never been her style, but a selfless sacrifice in a corner of the universe so distant that no one would ever know or understand the weight of what she’d done for them. She was a creature of the shadows, after all.

It’s fitting, in a way, that it had been them. He wonders if the universe had known, had been planning this all along. When confronted with the brutal truth of the sacrifice the soul stone demanded, they hadn’t even stopped to think about what it was that they loved most. They didn’t have to. Of course it was each other.  _Love makes you weak_ , she'd told him once, in what feels like another lifetime.  _That's why I don't care about anything, or anyone_.

The stone twinkles innocently in his hand, mocking him.  _She cared about you enough to die for you._

A part of him hates her. They’d both known, when faced with the choice, that dying would be the easy way out. Somehow, she'd convinced him that he had more to live for than she did. Now, as he sits frozen, unable to tear his eyes from the rock in his hands that taunts him mercilessly, he’s not sure that she was right.

He thinks, selfishly, that he would let the world end if he could reverse what had just happened.

Her body is gone. A part of him is glad that he doesn't have to see her lifeless, broken, especially when the image of her falling is already branded permanently into his mind. A bigger part of him is furious that he can't even bring her home so they can honour her sacrifice in the way she deserves. A tiny, hopeful part of him, one that he doesn't dare listen to, tells him that if her body isn't here, it might be somewhere else. Moving. Breathing. Alive.

He closes his hand tightly over the stone. It's warm, he realizes. The only warm thing on this harsh, unforgiving planet. Even as the wind whips slivers of ice at his exposed skin, the heat of the stone seeps through flesh and muscle until he can feel it in his very bones. The warmth lessens the crushing weight of his pain for long enough that he’s able to force himself to his feet.

He can mourn later, he tells himself, when this is all over.

It’s another punch to the gut, the realization that she won’t be there when this is all over. That he’ll have to explain to the rest of them why, after five years of radio silence when they needed him most, it’s _him_ who’s coming back with the stone, not her. That, after seeing the creature he’d become, she’d still sacrificed himself for him without a second thought. That he’d tried to do the same for her, but he’d been too weak.

She’d always been the strong one. The one who'd held the team together when they'd been falling apart at the seams. The one who had fought tooth and nail to keep them together for five years when the rest of them had all but given up. Their soul.

 _A soul for a soul_. 

“Nat,” he whispers, brokenly, and the stone in his hand pulses once, brightly, as if it can hear him. As if _she_ can hear him. Tears blur his vision as he collapses to the ground, and the next thing he knows, he’s spinning through time.

* * *

 

Two words are all it takes to break him.

“Where’s Nat?”

 _Don’t make me say it_ , he begs silently. _I’m not strong enough_. He feels empty, hollow, like a part of him was left behind on Vormir.

A soul for a soul, the guide had warned. He just hadn’t realized it would be his.

Their eyes burn through him as he stands there, helpless, everything he wants to say stuck in his throat, because he knows that if only one of them had to come back then by all rights it should have been Natasha.

_I tried to save her._

_She wouldn’t let me._

_She died for me._

“It’s supposed to be me,” he manages to choke out, in a voice he can barely recognize as his own.

_It should have been me._

The rational part of his brain knows that he would have had the exact same questions, had it been someone else who had come back alone. He understands their need to have hope, to cling to any chance, no matter how infinitesimal, that she made it through. He understands that they each need to mourn in their own way, after having a member of their own, their  _family_  torn from their midst. But when Thor suggests that they use the stones to bring her back, he snaps like a taut bowstring.

"You think I didn't think of that? You think we  _both_ didn't think of that? You think she just jumped without even stopping to wonder if there was another way? Do you think she  _wanted_ this?"

"Clint-" Tony warns.

"You weren't there!" he screams, as tears begin to blur his vision. "None of you were there! She sacrificed her life for that god damn stone because  _there was no other way_! You think I wouldn't do whatever it takes to get her back? You think I wouldn't go back there and die myself if it would do any good?" He sinks to the ground slowly, leaning his shoulder into a towering oak tree for support. "She's gone. So let's make sure it wasn't for nothing."

“Do you think she’d want a funeral?” The tears streaming down Steve’s face are the only thing that stops Clint from yelling at him, too.

“I think she’d want us to finish the job,” Bruce replies quietly.

It takes Clint a while to realize that they’re all staring at him, the silence palpable, as if the entire world is holding its breath. “Later,” he chokes out, because the thought of laying his best friend to rest right now, after everything he’s just been through, is too overwhelming. “I need…I need time.”

“Take it.” Clint can see his own pain mirrored in Steve’s eyes and knows that he understands, that he’s no stranger to grief. He’s loved and lost over two lifetimes, after all.

“We should probably all get some rest,” Tony says. “I think everyone could use it.”

They trickle off silently, one by one, grief weighing heavily over the compound, the thick silence broken only by the occasional hushed word, as if anything too loud might cause the fragile atmosphere to shatter.

Clint is the last to leave, stumbling to bed only when his eyes threaten to fall closed of their own volition. He slips into Natasha’s room, and all he means to do is sleep, really, but something on the dresser catches his eye. It’s a framed photo of the two of them taken shortly after the battle of New York. He remembers it like it was yesterday; Tony and Bruce joking with Steve and Thor, teaching them how to use smartphones, Steve messing around with his camera settings, taking pictures of anything and everything, and Natasha, quietly saying “Send me that one,” after Steve snapped a picture of her with her head resting on Clint’s shoulder.

All this time, she’d held on to hope. Held on to _him_. And now he was the one left untethered.

He should have known better than to think he’d be able to sleep. When he wakes in a cold sweat after the third nightmare of her falling, he gives up on sleep altogether. He shrugs into his jacket and, after a second, slides the picture off of her dresser, slipping it into his pocket as he makes his way outside.

If the compound felt suffocating, the rest of the world feels too big. It’s one thing to look up at the stars from Earth, he thinks. It’s a completely different feeling once you’ve been among them. He wonders which star is the planet she died on, wonders if he can even see it from here.

He slips a hand into his pocket, brushing his fingers along the edge of the photo’s frame.

“Hey,” he whispers. “I don’t know if you can hear me but…you know what, never mind. This is stupid.” He laughs once, a short harsh sound that cuts through the night air. “I’m talking to the fucking sky.”

“The sky can hear you,” comes a quiet voice from behind him. “Valhalla gained a mighty warrior tonight.”

They’re all standing behind him when he turns, shoulder to shoulder. Steve takes a step towards him and holds out a cup of coffee like a peace offering.

“Should we…uh…” Clint stares deep into his cup, rubbing the back of his neck, conscious of all of their eyes on him yet again. “Should someone say something?”

“You knew her best,” Bruce responds.

“I can’t…” he pauses, shaking his head. “I don’t know how to…”

“Just talk to her,” Steve says softly. “Say what you’d say to her, if she was here.”

“Um…okay.” He dips his head, takes a sip of coffee, and then turns, addressing the sky again. He’s not sure why, but it feels like the right thing to do. “Hey,” he begins again. “I…uh…I don’t know where Valhalla is exactly, or, well… _what_ it is…but…I hope it doesn’t hurt there. God knows you’ve suffered enough already. We…we got the stones, Nat. We’re really going to do it. We’re going to bring everyone back, and it’s all because of you. Everything we’re doing…it’s all because of you. I…” he pauses, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “ _God_ , I miss you…”

He looks back at the rest of them, at a loss for words, but no one else speaks. Steve nods once, tears glistening in his eyes again.

“Whatever it takes,” Clint whispers quietly.

He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but the stars seem to shine a little brighter when he looks back up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is tony stark's world and we're all just living in it
> 
> come commiserate with me on twitter (@hoboskywalker) or tumblr (@natrasharomanova)


	2. some people try to live instead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi welcome to this list of things:  
> -i am BLOWN AWAY by the response to the first chapter, sometimes it feels like i'm screaming into the void and i was honestly shocked to receive so much (positive!) feedback, so thank you so much to everyone who read, reviewed, commented, kudosed (?), you all mean the world to me and i consider you my personal friends  
> -i'm trying VERY HARD to update consistently at least once a week. that being said, this WIP really wouldn't be my style if i didn't have a maddeningly inconsistent update schedule so i am giving you all permission to come yell at me through any means of contact you may have if i go more than 7 days without an update PLEASE hold me accountable because i suck at meeting my self-imposed deadlines.  
> -this week i found out that baking powder and baking soda are not the same thing, which is completely irrelevant to this story but i just wanted you to know that i'm a dumbass  
> -chapter title from Don't Miss Me by, you guessed it, Marianas Trench ([listen here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nqCLH2ansk))

He knows he’s going to have to tell the rest of them, eventually. Wanda, Bucky, Sam, and the countless others who had fought by her side when he hadn’t. He owes them that much. In a way, though, he’s almost grateful that Stark’s death on the battlefield overshadows hers for a brief moment, allowing him to hide on the periphery as he desperately tries to compose himself for the parade of difficult conversations ahead of him.

In the end, they all seek him out.

“Steve told me,” Wanda says through her tears. “He said that she...that it was all because of her. That she’s the reason we came back.”

Clint nods, his breath catching in the back of his throat, his barely suppressed tears at the ready. He’s been on the edge of breaking down ever since the five of them had paid their respects at the lake last night. He’d slept for a few fitful hours afterwards, his rest punctuated by the recurring nightmare of her falling.

“I just wish…” he pauses, shakes his head, glances sideways at Wanda. “I just wish there was some way I could let her know. That we won.”

“She knows,” Wanda says, with so much absolute certainty that he _aches_ to believe her.

“Is this how it felt when Pietro…?” he’s not sure how to finish.

“Like half of you is missing,” Wanda offers.

“Does it go away?”

She smiles at him sadly. “You learn to live with it.”

* * *

 

Bucky and Sam come to find him later, shoving a beer into his hand as they sit down on either side of him on the rock he’s claimed because it offers the best view of the lake, and it’s the closest thing to staring into nothingness that he can find.

“Drink,” Sam commands, and Clint obeys, downing half the bottle in one swig.

“Fuck,” he whispers, as he lowers the bottle from his lips.

They sit in a silence that seems to stretch into an eternity, the only sounds the soft rustle of the leaves above them and the faint sound of the radio drifting from the house behind them.

“I tried to kill her once,” Bucky remembers.

Clint laughs weakly, the bottle shaking slightly in his hand. “So did I.”

“No wonder she liked me best,” Sam jokes.

They slip into silence again, but it’s a comfortable one. The idea that the two men on either side of him share in Clint’s grief makes it feel less all-consuming to him, somehow. It’s something he’ll carry forever, but his teammates have come alongside him to shoulder some of the weight. He doesn’t know how to tell them that he doesn’t deserve this, that Natasha was the one who devoted her life to finding them again while he’d turned his back on them for five years.

He doesn’t know how to tell them, so he doesn’t.

 _There are stars in the southern sky_ , the radio croons. The song feels intimately familiar to him, but he can’t remember why.

He lifts the bottle to his lips again, draining it.

* * *

 

He avoids Fury for as long as he can because he knows that conversation will be the hardest. He’s down by the lake again when the older man finally finds him, watching the reflection of the moon shimmer brightly in the water.

“Just when I thought I’d seen everything,” he says, lowering himself to the ground beside Clint.

Clint grunts in reply.

“I know I’m technically not your boss anymore. And I know I missed a hell of a lot over the past five years. This isn’t an official debriefing. But I’m asking, as a friend, about the circumstances surrounding Agent Romanoff’s death.”

Clint shakes his head minutely. “How…?”

“You don’t get to be the director of a covert intelligence organization by waiting for people to tell you things,” Fury says.

“I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

“Nobody had to,” Fury responds.

Clint wonders how many times throughout his years as Director that Fury’s had to have this conversation before, or if it ever gets any easier. Throughout the years of his partnership with Natasha he’d never thought about what he’d tell Coulson or Hill or Fury if he came back one day without her. It had never been an option for him.

Until now.

He starts to tell the story in the bits and pieces he can manage; travelling through time, travelling through space, the long climb up the frigid mountain on Vormir to get to the soul stone, and, finally, the brutal realization that one of them would have to die for it. The way they’d sat on the edge of the cliff, hand in hand, and both asked to be the one to die. The way he’d watched her fall. And finally, the way he’d woken up with the stone, and without her. The way it felt like it had torn him irreparably in two.

“It should have been me,” he says. The confession feels as raw as it did the first time he’d said it.

“You know, I always fought Coulson when he wanted to put the two of you in the field together,” Fury tells him. “I told him that your…emotional bond would get in the way of your ability to get the job done. That it would be your downfall.”

“You were right.”

“I was wrong,” Fury counters. “What Natasha did for you, for all of us-”

“She _died_ , Nick.”

“To save millions of lives. I can’t think of many other agents who would have made that call.”

“Is it bad that I don’t care?” he whispers. Of all the people he has left in this world, Fury is the one who has seen him at his absolute worst, and the only person that Clint is confident won’t think less of him for what he says next. “I’d gladly send everyone back to whatever dusty hell they came from if I could bring her back. I mean it, Nick.”

“She wouldn’t want you to.”

“Yeah,” Clint sighs, angrily brushing tears away from the corner of his eyes. “I know she wouldn’t.”

“I have something for you.”

“I don’t want it,” he says instantly.

Fury slips a hand inside his jacket, pulling out a thin white envelope. “You might change your mind.”

His name is written in the top right corner, in what he instantly recognizes as Natasha’s handwriting. Small and cramped, like she’s afraid of taking up space even on paper. The envelope shakes like a leaf in his trembling hand. “How long have you had this?”

“She gave it to me ten years ago. Made me swear not to tell you.”

 _Ten years_. “Right after New York.”

Fury nods in acknowledgement, his single eye fixing Clint with a burning stare as he reaches out and touches the envelope in Clint’s shaking hand. “If you won’t listen to anyone else…listen to her.”

* * *

 

He spends the next week staring at the envelope, tracing over her handwriting, trying to feel the indentation of where she’d pressed her pen into the paper. He’s taken to living in her old room at the compound, because he can’t bring himself to open the door to his own after five years, and he’s spent the time collecting pieces of her; the photo of the two of them after New York that he’d found on the night of her death, the small silver arrow necklace resting on her bedside table, and the letter. The one she’d entrusted Fury with, to give to him when she died.

He wants to read it, he wants to burn it, he wants to hold on to it forever, he wants to tear it into pieces and throw them to the wind.

Every night he tries to convince himself to open it, and every night he can’t bring himself to do it. It’s the last piece of her that remains a mystery, and to open it would be to admit to himself that she’s really gone. And while a part of him aches to read the words that she wrote to him ten years ago, an even bigger part of him knows that he’s not ready to let go of her yet.

So he holds on.

* * *

 

It’s a week before anyone brings up the stones. They knew they’d have to bring them back, they’ve always known, but it’s a week of hushed whispers and quickly silenced laughter and tiptoeing around each other before they’re ready for any semblance of moving on. A part of Clint still expects to look up and see Natasha walking through the door with that same smile on her face that she’d had before they’d left to go get the stones. Her last mission.

 _See you in a minute_.

“Clint.”

He doesn’t remember ever seeing Bruce this timid, not since they’d sat across the table from each other in a shawarma restaurant in what feels like another lifetime.

“Bruce,” he replies gruffly, his voice as raw as he feels.

“I know…I know you said that it was…irreversible. You know, what happened with…with…well, I was thinking. I know that the first time that I…well…I know that it didn’t bring everyone back. But what if…” he pauses, swallowing visibly.

“What if what?” Clint asks him hollowly.

“What if there was another way?”

“We’re not trading lives,” he responds immediately. “She’d never-”

“Not that,” Steve interrupts quickly. “You said a soul for a soul, that was the deal.”

“An everlasting exchange.”

“But what if it wasn’t? No one’s ever tried what we’re doing right now, bringing the stones back to the exact times they were taken from. What if we could trade the stone for Natasha? A soul for a soul.”

“It’s worth a try, Clint,” Bruce tells him.

He hates them for giving him hope. He hates himself even more for clinging to it like he’s a drowning man being offered his last glimpse of salvation. _An everlasting exchange._ The words echo in his mind as clearly as when he’d first heard them. He’s been surviving. A broken shell of what he once was, to be sure, but he’s been surviving. But if Steve comes back without Natasha, if his last minuscule glimpse of hope is extinguished once and for all, he thinks it might really kill him.

Steve flips up a compartment on his utility belt to reveal a second set of Pym particles that are clearly meant for Natasha. “You’re not the only one who wants her back, Clint. Please…let me try this.”

 _You’re not the only one who loves her_ , Clint reminds himself. Steve was the one who had been there by her side during the five years that he hadn’t, when the rest of them had given up and closed the door on the chapter of their lives that had been the Avengers. It was Steve who had helped her assemble the scattered, broken pieces of what had once been earth’s mightiest heroes. Steve, who had wept openly by the lake on the evening of her death, who had later whispered to Tony in a conversation that Clint hadn’t been meant to overhear, “I don’t know how to do this without her.”

Their eyes meet and Steve’s are filled with the same resolve that he’d seen in Natasha’s face on Vormir before she’d plunged to her death.

Slowly, Clint nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> red skull and darth maul are the same person, change my mind
> 
> come commiserate with me on tumblr (@natrasharomanova) or twitter (@hoboskywalker)


	3. and point me home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi welcome to chapter 3 please enjoy your stay
> 
> -thank you SO SO SO much to everyone who took the time to read/comment on the last chapter, you guys are all so nice and i hope you all get to pet many dogs today  
> -chapter title taken from [Ulysses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_p143Nk4GU) by Josh Garrels (guys please if you only ever listen to one song that i recommend, let it be this one)  
> -it's almost midnight and i've slept like 12 of the past 72 hours so i really hope everything i wrote makes sense  
> -i'd like to publicly call out AO3 user TheRedGlass for messaging me on Facebook to make fun of me for not knowing the difference between baking powder and baking soda (i love you Sarah)  
> -i really REALLY just wanted to make Steve say "son of a bitch" don't @ me

He saves Vormir for last.

The cold is bone chilling. The higher he climbs, the deeper it seems to penetrate, tearing through the thick fabric of his suit like it’s made of paper, the ice stinging the exposed skin of his face.

He realizes that this is the last thing she felt before she died.

His lungs are burning from the cold air by the time he reaches the top of the cliff, and the wind is strong enough that it could blow him over the edge if he’s not careful. He wonders how many others have fallen to their deaths here.

There was a day where he would have been surprised to see the image that greets him, but not anymore. A form in a tattered black cloak floats at the cliff’s edge, suspended in the air. _Dementor_ , Steve thinks immediately, and curses Sam for forcing him to add the Harry Potter books to his list of ‘Things to Experience in the 21st Century’.

“Welcome, Steven,” the being intones, and Steve’s blood turns to ice in his veins, because it may have been almost a century, but he’d know that voice anywhere. “Son of Sarah.”

“Red Skull,” he breathes as the cloaked figure turns towards him, revealing the face of his old nemesis. “Son of a bitch.”

“My past is no longer relevant,” he replies, drifting slowly towards Steve. “I am here as a guide, to all those who seek the soul stone.”

Steve opens his hand slowly to reveal the orange stone pulsing in his palm, as if it has its own heartbeat. “What about those who wish to return it?”

The creature in front of him stares intently. “It can be returned, yes.”

“Exchanged,” Steve clarifies. “That’s how it works, right? A soul for a soul?”

The guide drifts closer and Steve closes his hand over the stone protectively. “You seek the daughter of Ivan.”

“Why does it matter who I’m looking for?”

“The likes of this have never been attempted before,” the guide continues, oblivious to Steve’s question. “You may have your exchange, Captain Rogers. But I warn you that it may come with a price.”

 _It already has_ , Steve thinks. “Tell me what I have to do.”

“Drop the stone,” comes the answer. “Once you part with the soul stone, you will regain the soul that you seek.”

Briefly, Steve considers the possibility that it could be a lie, a ruse to force him to part with the stone, but the guide’s message is clear. A soul for a soul. If there’s any way to get Natasha back, this is how. He moves slowly, deliberately, fist extended in front of him as he steps closer to the cliff’s edge. He forces his fingers open as he leans over, bracing himself against the gust of wind that whips the stone out of his hand and flings it into the nothingness below.

The world around him dissolves and he finds himself standing in a water so calm that his reflection stares back at him. The cliff is gone, vanished, and his guide with it. Heart beating so hard it threatens to burst out of his chest, he turns.

The horizon is clear as far as he can see, the water stretching out ahead of him reflecting the orange tint of the sky. The only thing disturbing the flat expanse of water is a small mass of black, one he could have mistaken for a rock.

He runs.

“Natasha!” He kneels next to her, pulling her small body towards him, desperately feeling at her wrist for a pulse. Her body is still and cold, _too_ cold, strands of her hair that had escaped from her braid plastered to her face by the water. “Wake up,” he pleads, shaking her shoulder. “Please, Nat, wake up.”

The faint flutter he feels under his fingertips is enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“Natasha.” He shrugs out of his jacket, wrapping it around her frigid body. “Natasha can you hear me?”

Her eyes flutter open. “Steve?”

“Let’s get you out of here,” he responds, securing an arm around her waist. “Can you stand?”

“Clint,” she breathes.

“He’s fine,” Steve tells her. “They’re all fine, everyone-”

“Steve,” she interrupts, and her voice is stronger this time. Her fingers, where they grip the exposed skin of his arm, are like ice. “Did it work?”

He slips a hand into the compartment at his waist, pulling out the second set of Pym particles and pressing them into Natasha’s hand. “We’ll know in a minute.”

He presses the button at his wrist and Vormir disappears behind them.

 

* * *

 

It’s the longest minute of his life. They all stand there in an uncomfortable silence, none of them talking, each of them avoiding eye contact with the others. Clint knows that the same thoughts are running through everyone’s mind. _What if it doesn’t work? What if they don’t come back?_ His anxiety turns to nausea as he watches the final seconds count down, desperately hoping for this harder than he’s ever dared to hope in his life. The universe has never been kind to him, to _them_. But after what she’d done, the sacrifice she’d made, it owed her this much. Didn’t it?

As the final second disappears on the clock, Steve materializes on the lawn in front of them, Natasha’s body in his arms.

“Is she-?” Bruce starts.

“Alive,” Steve confirms quickly.

Sam lets out a whoop of joy that Clint can hardly hear as he rushes towards the pair in front of him. “Careful,” Steve cautions him, and Clint knows this all too well, but they’ll have time later to determine what type of damage the stone may have caused, and right now there’s nothing in this world that can stop him from pulling Natasha into his arms roughly, crushing her to his chest, desperate to feel her heart beating.

She lets out a low moan and Clint relaxes his hold on her slightly, reaching up to brush the hair back from her face. “Hey. You’re okay. Look at me. It’s okay, you’re okay.” He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince her or himself. He turns to Steve. “Is she hurt?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Steve replies. “But we should probably get her inside, get Banner to check her out.”

“’M fine,” Natasha mumbles, curling her fingers into the fabric of Clint’s shirt. “Just cold.”

“Can you walk?” he asks her.

“In a minute.”

A low, shaky laugh escapes him as relief washes over him in waves. She’s here. She’s alive.

She’s shivering violently, and her skin is ice cold to the touch.

As if he can read Clint’s mind, Steve says, “We’ve got to get her warmed up.”

Clint nods, lifting her easily in his arms as he stands to his feet. It’s a mark of how helpless she really is that she doesn’t protest at being carried this way, and Clint hurries towards the compound, praying that it’s nothing more serious than the cold. He doesn’t know what the side effects are of coming back from the dead, none of them do. But right now she’s alive, he reminds himself, and all he needs to do is keep her that way.

Steve shoulders open the door to her room so that Clint can carry her in. He sets her down gently in the bed, pulling Steve’s jacket tighter around her shoulders before covering her with the thickest blanket he can find.

“You’ve got it from here.” Steve’s leaning against the doorway when Clint looks up, his arms folded across his chest.

Clint nods in acknowledgement. “Unless you want to stay?”

Steve smiles softly, but shakes his head. “Everyone else is going to have a lot of questions, and I’d rather not have them barging in here. I’ll go buy you two some time.”

“My hero,” Natasha murmurs from the bed, and Steve’s quiet laughter echoes through the hallway as the door swings shut behind him.

Clint sinks onto the bed beside her, his eyes finding hers immediately. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she whispers.

Her tremors have subsided slightly but she’s still shaking, and Clint remembers the deep, penetrating cold of Vormir, the ice that had stung his face as he’d hung tethered to the cliff and watched her hand slip out of his. He pulls the blanket more tightly around her, as if it can shield her from the horrors of the universe that they’re both all too familiar with by now.

What do you say to the person you watched fall to their death, the person you’ve spent the past week mourning, the person you thought you’d never see again?

“How...how are you feeling?” he manages.

She shrugs nonchalantly, the ghost of a smile flickering across her face. “I’ve had worse.”

“You _died_ , Natasha.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. He feels like an old bowstring, so stretched and frayed that he’s liable to break at any minute. “You…you _died_ , and I thought that…I thought…” he chokes back his tears, willing them to stop.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Clint, it’s okay.” Cold fingertips brush the wetness from his cheeks, and his tears flow even faster in response because this isn’t how it’s supposed to work, he’s supposed to be strong for her, not the other way around.

“Fury gave me your letter,” he tells her, when he’s composed himself enough to speak.

“Fury,” she breathes. “So it worked. Everyone’s back?”

“Everyone’s back,” he confirms. “Thanks to you.”

“Did you read it?”

He wants to tell her about the sleepless nights and the dreams of her falling and the days spent staring at the envelope wondering if he’ll ever have the courage to read her final words to him, but he knows he can’t burden her with all this mere minutes after she’s come back from the dead. So instead he says, “No.”

She considers this for a moment, and then nods. “Good.”

Her hands are resting on his lap so he takes them in his own, closing his hands over her fingers in an attempt to warm them up. “You warm enough?”

“Getting there.” She gives him a small smile, but it falters quickly to be replaced by the look she often gets on her face when her mind is far away.

There are a million questions he wants to ask her, but he thinks the answers might break him. She’s taking her own resurrection surprisingly well, and he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop because, all things considered, she really shouldn’t be _this_ okay.

 _What happens, after?_ , he wants to ask her. _What did you see?_

_What does it feel like to die?_

He tries to settle for a more practical question, forcing himself to smile as he bumps her shoulder lightly with his fist. “You hungry?”

It works, or at least it seems to, his voice calling her mind back from wherever it had been, her eyes focusing in on him again. “I guess I should be,” she responds.

“That’s not an answer.”

Natasha doesn’t respond, her eyes fixated on a point above his shoulder. Clint remembers how she found him in his apartment a week after Loki and the battle of New York when he’d barely been able to get out of bed let alone take care of himself, picking up the shattered fragments of his life and helping him piece them back together. He has a feeling he might need to do the same for her now. He’s not sure how he’s going to manage it – he’s barely holding it together himself, but he takes a deep breath and forces himself to be strong. For her.

He leans in, pressing his lips gently to her temple. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Natasha moves slowly, as if she’s injured, wobbling slightly as she stands to her feet. Clint loops an arm around her waist to stabilize her and she smiles up at him gratefully. “Thanks.”

She leans heavily on him as they make their way to the door and down the hall, one arm slung over Clint’s shoulders and the other holding her borrowed jacket tightly around her body. Clint’s expecting the worst, so he’s prepared when every single pair of eyes in the room look up to meet them as they enter. Natasha stiffens almost imperceptibly beside him.

Steve is the first one to break the spell, gesturing towards a pile of pizza boxes on the table. “You guys hungry?”

Clint glances down quickly at Natasha, wondering if maybe this was a mistake, he should have just brought her something to eat in her room instead of dragging her out here to answer all their burning questions.

Natasha, however, relaxes into him, her lips turning up in a small smile. “You would not _believe_ how bad the food is in the afterlife.”

The tension dissipates slightly as Clint helps her over to one of the couches, where she sinks down next to Steve. “Good to have you back, Nat,” he says quietly, gently bumping his shoulder into hers.

Bruce passes over two plates and Clint takes his, perching himself on the arm of the couch next to Natasha because he’s still afraid that if she might disappear if he takes his eyes off her. He watches her body language carefully, his eyes trained on her face as she scans the room, taking in the presence of those she hasn’t seen in five years, exchanging soft smiles with Wanda and Bucky and Sam.

And then she freezes, mouth open, dropping her untouched slice of pizza onto the plate resting on her lap, and asks the last question any of them want to answer.

“Where’s Tony?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> groot is Ent kin
> 
> come commiserate with me on tumblr (@natrasharomanova) / twitter (@hoboskywalker)


	4. stars in the southern sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi welcome to chapter 4
> 
> -thank you so so so SO much to everyone who's kept reading and commenting, you all make my heart so happy and i'm so glad people are enjoying this, the response to this story is way better than i ever imagined and i love you all  
> -this is now my gratuitous "things that should have happened in endgame" fic don't @ me  
> -chapter title from Seven Bridges Road by the Eagles [(listen)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-q7Mih69KE)  
> -i followed a recipe perfectly this week so no one is allowed to make fun of my cooking anymore

_“Where’s Tony?”_

“Natasha-” Clint starts, trailing off when he realizes that he doesn’t know what to say. He’s been meaning to tell her, he _wanted_ to tell her, but he’s barely holding himself together as it is and she _just_ came back from the dead and he wanted to give her some time to be okay before, well…

Before she wasn’t.

“He’s gone,” Bruce says quietly.

The tension that had all but dissolved earlier feels so thick it threatens to suffocate them.

“Gone,” Natasha repeats flatly. “What do you mean, gone?”

Every eye in the room is downcast. None of them want to break the spell, to say the word they’ve spent the last week avoiding, even though the act of laying him to rest had given Tony’s death the finality that Natasha’s had been lacking.

Natasha’s death, which had been permanent until it wasn’t.

Compared to Tony’s death which was, by nature, irreversible.

Bruce had explained it to them as patiently as he could. The semantics of it had been lost on Clint but the principle of it was that it’s impossible to use the stones to bring someone back if the stones were what killed them in the first place, not without opening some kind of impossible paradox. He doesn’t know much about the physics of time travel and the quantum realm, but he does know that if there was even the tiniest shred of hope that they could bring Tony back, Bruce would have tried it by now.

“He used the stones,” Steve says finally, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. “He got rid of Thanos, he saved all of our lives, but…”

“He couldn’t survive the radiation,” Bruce finishes.

Natasha’s eyes are watery when she turns to Clint, and behind the tears is an emotion he can only call betrayal. “You told me it worked,” she accuses, choking on a small sob as she reaches up to brush the tears angrily from her eyes. “You told me we _won_. You told me everyone was back, _everyone_ , Clint.”

“I was going to tell you, Nat, I _swear_ , I just wanted to give you time to…to…”

He trails off as Wanda makes her way across the room, fitting herself into the space between Steve and Natasha on the couch and wrapping a protective arm around Natasha’s shoulders. “I was furious at you when I found out what you did to bring us back,” she says softly. “I hated the idea that you died for a world you’d never get to see.”

“I’d do it again,” Natasha whispers.

“So would he,” Wanda replies simply.

It’s going to take time. Clint, of all people, knows this. The team has been a shell of its former self over the past week, like a body with both its heart and soul torn out, the group of them existing together in the compound because they have nowhere else to go, and because knowing that they’re not alone lessens the pain of their collective loss just enough that they’re able to survive it.

She doesn’t know that this is the first time any of them have smiled in a week. She doesn’t know that this is the first time since Tony’s funeral that they’ve all been gathered in the same place, because they’ve been avoiding each others’ presence and the physical pain it causes to be acutely aware of the empty spaces in the room.

“So,” Natasha says finally, and her voice is quiet, strained. “What else did I miss?”

“Cap can lift Thor’s hammer,” Bucky pipes up quickly.

The distraction works. Natasha raises an eyebrow playfully. “Prove it.”

“Gladly.” Thor removes Mjolnir from the coat rack where it’s hanging, passing it over to Steve, who lifts it as if it’s no heavier than an average hammer.

“Worthy son of a bitch,” Clint mutters under his breath, eliciting a laugh from Natasha and Wanda.

Steve holds the hammer out towards Natasha, a question in his eyes. “You want to try?”

She shakes her head quickly. “No. I…no.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Bruce remembers.

It feels like another lifetime, the day they’d all sat around the table at Stark Tower, taking turns trying to lift the hammer, Thor growing increasingly more amused after each failed attempt. Clint remembers Natasha shaking her head when her turn came around. _That’s not a question I need answered_. He’d never asked her why, and she’d never volunteered the information, but he knows.

Natasha’s uneaten pizza still rests in her lap, forgotten, and Clint reaches forward to tap on the plate gently. “Eat.”

She makes a face at him but takes a small bite. Which is better than nothing, so Clint decides not to push it. Her eyes are still red-rimmed and slightly swollen, and he knows that she’s not holding up quite as well as she might have everyone else believe. He’s seen her come down from enough missions to know that it can take her days, _weeks_ , even, to let down her guard enough that she’s able to let herself _feel_. The fallout from this will come later, and he’ll meet it when it does. Right now, he’s just holding himself together as best as he can, giving her permission to fall apart when she needs to.

It feels like healing, the group of them all sitting together eating takeout like they’d done so many times before, back when things hadn’t been as complicated and the entire universe hadn’t needed saving and their biggest problem was aliens attacking New York. It’s been so long since they’ve had even a shred of normalcy, and all of them cling to it desperately, only beginning to drift off to their respective rooms when it’s well past midnight.

Clint finally decides it might be time for them to sleep after Natasha begins nodding off beside him, her head pillowed on his bicep. He touches her knee lightly, “Hey.”

She’s alert within seconds, her eyes completing a scan of the room so quickly he could have imagined it, cataloguing the presence of every potential threat before zeroing in on him. “You should get some sleep,” he tells her. She nods in agreement, taking the hand that he offers and letting him pull her to her feet. Her movements are a little more steady now than they were before but she grips his hand tightly, and Clint can tell that she’s grateful for the support.

As soon as the door to her room swings shut, Natasha shrugs out of Steve’s jacket and begins peeling off her suit. Clint can’t help the gasp that escapes from his mouth as the suit reaches her waist; her ribs are a watercolour of red and purple and blue, the bruising stretching all the way across her abdomen and curling around her back. “ _God_ , Nat.”

She shrugs, discarding the suit on the floor and sliding into a pair of sweatpants. She’s already in the closet, rummaging for a sweater, by the time Clint catches up to her. “When were you going to tell me about…” he gestures hopelessly to the bruising on her ribs that looks even more nauseating up close. “How did…?”

“I fell off a cliff, Clint,” she replies, with all her years of practiced patience. She winces slightly as she reaches for the shelf where her sweater sits, so he grabs it for her. She rolls her eyes at him but he doesn’t miss the soft smile as she pulls it over her head.

“You could have told me,” he says finally.

“What difference would it have made?”

 _The difference is that we tell each other these things_ , he thinks. She still hasn’t said anything about Vormir beyond her joke about the food, and he _knows_ there are things she isn’t telling him. He knows she doesn’t owe him anything, knows that _he’s_ the one who left _her_ for five years, but still. It hurts a little more than it should.

He hovers uncertainly by the bed as she slides under the covers, taking a tentative step closer when she looks up at him curiously. “Should I…?”

“Stay.”

Clint exhales deeply, releasing tension he wasn’t aware he was holding. He doesn’t want to make any assumptions, he knows a lot can happen in five years and that he hasn’t exactly been there for her when she needed him. But he thinks that if she’d sent him away it might actually have killed him.

He slips into bed beside her and she fits herself against him as naturally as she did five years ago, and the memory of it causes his still-barely-suppressed tears to resurface.

“Clint. Hey. It’s okay.”

The soft timbre of her voice is what finally causes him to break, and he abandons all control at last, letting his tears flow freely as she wraps her arms tightly around his shaking body. He’s dimly aware of her lips pressed to his temple as she whispers in his ear over and over again. “It’s okay, Clint. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Sorry,” he says roughly, choking back a sob, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes in an effort to stem the flow of tears. “I’m a mess.”

“Can you sleep?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

She smooths the hair back from his face, touching her lips gently to his forehead. “Can you try?”

“I don’t…”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she reassures him.

“Okay,” he agrees, and now that he’s given himself permission to rest, his eyes slide shut of their own volition. The last thing he feels before he falls asleep is Natasha’s hand in his.

 

* * *

 

_Let me go. It’s okay._

It doesn’t matter that the outcome was reversed, that his subconscious _knows_ she’s alive. She still dies in his dreams.

Clint wakes in a cold sweat, just barely swallowing his scream before it can tear its way out of his throat. His fingers stretch out across the bed, meeting nothing but a faint, lingering warmth that he’s not sure if he’s imagining. Trying to quell the rising feeling of panic, he slips out of bed and makes his way down the hall, anxiety building in the pit of his stomach with every step he takes.

Relief crashes down on him in waves when he finally sees Natasha, standing alone in the middle of the room where they’d all eaten earlier. Her name is half-formed on his tongue but he silences himself at the last minute as his eyes adjust to the darkness just well enough that he’s able to see the object of her attention, lying in front of her on the table.

Mjolnir.

He takes a step back, melting into the darkness, hoping he hasn’t already notified her of his presence, holding his breath as he watches her reach forward.

She trails her hand along the ornate handle, her shoulders rising and falling once as she takes a deep breath. Slowly, carefully, she curls her fingers around the base of the handle.

And lifts.

Lightning flashes through the window, illuminating the entire room for a millisecond as thunder cracks across the sky like a gunshot. Natasha drops the hammer as if she’s been burned.

Clint lets out the breath he’s been holding in a short huff and Natasha immediately whips her head around, her eyes scanning the darkness. She relaxes slightly when she sees him, a shy smile creeping across her face.

“I had to know,” she says quietly, in response to the question that he doesn’t have to ask. “Now that I’m…back…I had to know if I could…if I was…” she trails off and looks down, clenching and unclenching her hands.

He’s seen her worth every day of her life ever since he first brought her back to SHIELD. He’s seen her risk her life for others time and time again, seen her willingness to fight to the death for what she believes in, seen her rebuild a broken team from literal ashes after half the world was destroyed. This is how he’s always seen her.

But now she sees it herself.

“For the record,” he tells her, “I think you could have done that a long time ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mjolnir is still there because i said so
> 
> come commiserate with me on twitter (@hoboskywalker) / tumblr (@natrasharomanova)


	5. one small step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI WELCOME TO THE FINAL CHAPTER
> 
> -i am still absolutely blown away by the response to this story, i never expected this and i just want to thank each and every one of you who read, liked, bookmarked, kudosed, and reviewed, you're all wonderful, beautiful humans and i love you all 3000  
> -chapter title from Walk on the Moon by Great Big Sea ([PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS IT'S AMAZING](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXoalnqD7z4))  
> -this is definitely not the last of my post-endgame writing, because i still have SO MANY MORE IDEAS for things i want to write, so more is absolutely coming, hit that subscribe button (which i have recently found out is a thing) or come find me on tumblr (@natrasharomanova) if you don't want to miss out!  
> -all cliffs in this story are based off of cliffs that i have jumped off of in real life

****Some things are inevitable.

 

_C-_

_If you’re reading this, that means I’m dead. It also means that Fury listened to me, which I think should go down as my greatest accomplishment._

_All joking aside, I want you to know that whatever happened to me, I chose this. Maybe not death, maybe not directly. But I chose this life. I chose you. And I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything._

_I hope you’re okay. And if you’re not okay yet, I hope you will be. I don’t want anyone else to suffer on my account._

_I was never a big believer in meaning. And I think that’s because my life never really meant anything before you and SHIELD and the Avengers. Before all of this, I was just trying to stay alive, but now I think I finally have a reason to._

_Know that wherever I am, whatever happened to me, it was worth it._

_I hope it was worth it for you._

_Yours, always,_

_Natasha_

The words on the page begin to blur slowly as he reads, the paper shaking in his hand with each teardrop that it catches. He folds the letter before his tears can blur her writing so much that it’s illegible and, with shaking hands, slips it back into the envelope from which it came.

“You said you didn’t read it.”

“Nat.” He’d been so absorbed in her letter that he hadn’t heard her enter the room.

She’s leaning against the doorway when he turns, arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow raised delicately. A question.

“I didn’t,” he says quickly. “I couldn’t open it before.”

”Why now?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. The shadows under her eyes have only grown more pronounced over the past week, and he knows she hasn’t been sleeping. He knows, because every night he wakes up after vivid nightmares of her falling, but every night she wakes up first.

He’s been giving her space, letting her hide, both from the others and from him. But he knows that the longer she waits to face her demons, the stronger they’ll become. He knows, because they’re the same demons that haunt him.

“Where were you?”

Her expression is unreadable. “Couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk.”

“Just like last night. And the night before. And the night before that.”

She shrugs with the shoulder that isn’t pressed against the doorway. “I don’t need a lot of sleep. I never have.”

Clint sighs deeply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Why are you doing this, Natasha?”

“Doing what?” she asks innocently.

“Pretending.” He punches his fist into the mattress as he says it, accentuating the word. “This isn’t us. We don’t pretend, not…not with each other.”

“Maybe I don’t know what ‘us’ is anymore.” She says it quietly, like it’s something she’s scared to admit. Like if she says it too loudly, the whole world might hear.

She could have screamed it, for all the ways that it still makes him feel like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. “What do you mean?”

“You left,” she hisses at him. “You left me for _five years_ , Clint, and then you _finally_ came back and just when I thought that maybe something would go right for once in my goddamn life I almost lost you _again_. You can’t possibly understand what that did to me.”

“You _died_ , Natasha!”

He doesn’t mean to raise his voice and he recognizes his mistake instantly when she crumples to the floor, her back pressed up against the doorway. He wants to apologize, _aches_ to comfort her, but the way her arms are wrapped protectively around her chest makes the short distance between them seem like an ocean.

“I still remember what it feels like,” she whispers.

“What?” he responds, even though he knows, because he _needs_ to hear her say it.

“Falling.”

He moves slowly, placing her letter on the small table beside the bed before standing up and walking hesitantly towards her, giving her enough time to stop him if she wants to.

She doesn’t.

Clint slides down onto the ground beside her, back against the wall, his shoulder just barely brushing hers. Her hand is shaking where it rests on her knee, and he remembers the same hand shaking inside his as they hung from the cliff on Vormir, remembers the unmasked fear in her eyes before she fell, remembers the bruises covering her ribs. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Slowly, without looking up at him, she nods once.

They sit in a silence that Clint doesn’t dare break; he knows that she’ll talk when she’s ready, just as she knows that he’ll give her as much time as she needs. She finally takes a deep breath, her hand trembling as she slips it into his, and he grips it as tightly as he can.

“Every night I dream that I’m back there,” comes her hushed confession. “Falling. And not knowing when the end is coming. And wondering…” she whispers the last part so quietly that he can hardly hear her, as if she’s ashamed of it, “wondering if it would hurt.”

“Did it?”

She shakes her head no. “Not until I woke up again.”

“What did it feel like?” He almost hopes she won’t answer.

“Like waiting,” comes the response. “Like I was in a place that wasn’t here and wasn’t there. An in-between. I heard…” her voice catches briefly and Clint gives her hand a gentle squeeze. “I heard you say my name,” she finishes.

“And then?”

“And then I woke up, and it was cold. And…and I was scared.”

“You still are.” It isn’t a question.

She looks at him this time when she nods, and her teary eyes would be enough to rip his heart in half if it wasn’t already in pieces.

“So am I,” he confesses softly. “But, hey. Remember what you said to me after New York?”

“Which part?”

“That you can remake yourself. Take back control. Turn your greatest fear into your greatest strength.”

The corners of her mouth lift slightly and she laces her fingers more tightly through his. “You still remember.”

“ _God_ , Nat, how could I forget? You saved my life that day.”

“So I guess this is my payback then?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Clint pushes himself to his feet, tugging gently on her hand. “Come on.”

“Where?”

“I have an idea.” When she looks at him hesitantly, he adds, “Trust me?”

“Clint it’s two in the morning.”

“So?”

He can’t help but grin at her reluctance because despite everything, despite all they’ve gone through both separately and together, she’s still the same Natasha who had adamantly refused to follow him up to the roof of SHIELD headquarters the night he’d brought her in, even though it boasted the best view of the city, because ‘I can’t get in trouble on my first _day_ , Barton.’

(He’d found her up there a week later and she’d offered him a shy smile, the first he’d ever seen from her, and begrudgingly admitted that he’d been right about the view.)

He hopes he’s right about this too.

Natasha lets him pull her to her feet, and despite her earlier misgivings, a smile begins to spread across her face, a quiet echo of his own. “Okay.”

“Get your jacket.”

“Clint, what are you-”

“Hey,” he interrupts, pointing a finger at her. “You said you’d trust me.”

“And I already regret it,” she mutters, but shrugs into her jacket all the same. Clint pockets her car keys on the way out, taking her hand again because it’s been far too long since anything has felt this easy, and now that he can hold on to her again, he can’t seem to bring himself to let go.

Natasha lets him lead her all the way down the hall, out the door, and to her car, a bemused expression on her face as he climbs in the driver’s side and begins to adjust the seat to his height. She slides into the passenger’s seat and leans back against the headrest, turning to stare at him curiously.

“Go to sleep,” he says, in response to the question in her eyes. “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

If he’s expecting resistance, he doesn’t get it. Natasha doesn’t even ask him where ‘there’ is, just nods, letting her eyes slide shut as Clint turns the key in the ignition.

The roads are empty but for them as they speed down the highway into the open sky – a vast expanse of glittering stars that seem brighter than they ever have, even on the darkest of country nights back at the farm. Clint fiddles with the buttons on the dashboard until soft music begins to drift out of the speakers, the night swallowing them completely as they make their way further from the compound.

The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon as Clint pulls on to a dirt road that curves steeply upwards for a short distance before ending abruptly. The car shudders to a stop and he reaches over, brushing his fingertips across Natasha’s cheek. “Tasha?”

Her eyes flutter open slowly and he watches her closely as she takes in their surroundings, her eyes coming to rest on the tree line in front of them. “I think we ran out of road.”

“There’s worse problems to have,” Clint replies, chuckling. “Come on.”

The trail is short, but narrow, forcing them to walk single file. Clint takes the lead, glancing back every so often at Natasha. She grins at him, her hair burning fiery red in the early morning sun as she brushes it out of her face. Before long, Clint can hear the faint sound of waves breaking along the coast and he can feel the adrenaline beginning to pump through his veins as his pace quickens automatically.

The tree line finally gives way to a rugged expanse of rock, and as he moves closer to the edge, Clint can see the waves churning far beneath them; a mixture of grey and velvet blue, the surface of the water sparkling in the morning light. A light breeze caresses his face, bringing with it the faint salty smell of the ocean. He feels Natasha’s hand slip into his as she steps up onto the rock beside him.

Mist sprays up from below, the cool droplets kissing their skin and dampening their clothes. Natasha’s fingers tighten around his as she takes a hesitant step forward, peering over the edge of the cliff at the waves tossing below them. “Why did you bring me here?”

A tiny, insecure part of him wonders if maybe he’s wrong about this, but he quickly shuts that part down, forcing his anxieties to a dark corner of his mind as he lifts her hand towards him, brushing his lips across her fingers. “Sometimes to take back control, you have to lose a little bit first.”

“What do you mean?” she whispers.

“Jump with me.”

“Clint…”

“Jump with me. Please.”

She leans forward to look over the cliff again. Her hand trembles ever so slightly in his, the way it did on Vormir, but when she looks back at him, her eyes are steeled with resolve. “Together?”

“Together,” he promises.

They take two running steps and then launch themselves off the cliff without hesitation. Clint tightens his grip on Natasha as the water below rushes up to meet them. She makes a small noise halfway between a laugh and a scream that immediately gets lost on the wind, and then they crash into the waves. The turbulent water tears her hand from his and Clint surfaces alone, wiping salt water out of his eyes. He looks around wildly for a moment before Natasha surfaces, wet hair plastered to the side of her face, her smile so bright that the rest of the world seems to dim in comparison.

Clint can’t help himself. He laughs at the absurdity of it all, the fact that they’ve just driven through the night to jump off a cliff into the ocean, the fact that their clothes are drenched and he didn’t think to pack extras and now they have to turn around and drive back home. The fact that none of this matters in the slightest because of the smile on Natasha’s face.

They swim over to the base of the cliff and begin picking their way slowly up the rock, the warm sun drying them as they go. It’s a different kind of healing, Clint thinks. The wounds are still there, and they’ll remain for years just like the wounds of New York and Ultron and the collapse of SHIELD and everything else in between. But whatever comes, whatever cliff they have to jump off of next, they’ll face it together.

Natasha’s waiting for him when he reaches the top of the cliff, offering her hand to help him the rest of the way up. He pulls her into a tight embrace when he’s close enough, burying his face in her hair. “You good?” he asks.

She leans back, still smiling in that way that mends every hole the past has ever torn in his heart, and nods.

“Let’s do it again.”

Some things are inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Van Halen voice] MIGHT AS WELL JUMP
> 
> come find me on tumblr (@natrasharomanova) / twitter (@hoboskywalker)


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